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  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
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    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
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    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
      • Otis Fuqua Fall 2022
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      • Kate Maxwell Fall 2022
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    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
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  • Issue #25 Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Art Spring 2023 >
      • David Carter Spring 2023
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      • Satya Dash Spring 2023
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      • Dan Fliegel Spring 2023
      • Lisa Higgs ​Spring 2023
      • Dennis Hinrichsen ​Spring 2023
      • Mara Jebsen ​Spring 2023
      • Abriana Jetté ​Spring 2023
      • Letitia Jiju ​Spring 2023
      • E.W.I. Johnson ​Spring 2023
      • Ashley Kunsa ​Spring 2023
      • Susanna Lang ​Spring 2023
      • James Fujinami Moore Spring 2023
      • Matthew Murrey Spring 2023
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2023
      • Heather Qin ​Spring 2023
      • Wesley Sexton ​Spring 2023
      • Ashish Singh ​Spring 2023
      • Sara Sowers-Wills ​Spring 2023
      • Sydney Vogl ​Spring 2023
      • Elinor Ann Walker Spring 2023
      • Andrew Wells Spring 2023
      • Erin Wilson Spring 2023
      • Marina Hope Wilson ​Spring 2023
      • David Wojciechowski Spring 2023
      • Jules Wood Spring 2023
      • Ellen Zhang Spring 2023
      • BJ Zhou Spring 2023
      • Jane Zwart Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Fiction Spring 2023 >
      • Eleonora Balsano Spring 2023
      • Callie S. Blackstone Spring 2023
      • Daniel Deisinger Spring 2023
      • CL Glanzing Spring 2023
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    • Issue #25 Nonfiction Spring 2023 >
      • Kalie Johnson Spring 2023
      • Amanda Roth Spring 2023

Kate Maxwell

Timber
​

I’ve brought down too many trees since I’ve met you. Dug too many holes, and the pads of my
fingers are mapped with earth and regret. Yet here I am, in this wanting-to-be-wild front yard,
still standing, and awaiting your instruction.

            You perch precariously upon top ladder rung to bind the old Pine’s heart. I remain below,
grasping rope and fealty between tentative palms, as you loop the coarse weave noose around her
trunk. Now she is ready to fell. Aloft, oblivious, with her abiding solid stance, breathing into the
sharp blue day as she’s done for decades. Chainsaw jolts into its unrepentant roar and I shoot
shudders into thick, hot air.

            “Now! Pull! Pull harder!” you scream.
And your expression, even at this distance, wonders why I’m so weak, why I must be told, how I
would cope without you. I bid biceps and thighs to hold as I lean back, grinding heels into the
grass, and heave into my resolve.

            ​Then she breaks. With final splintering crack, groan of surrender, she crashes metres
before my feet in a cloud of malty dust and woodchips. You fist pump and holler.

            “Alleluia!! We took her down!”
I nod vaguely, but consider god had nothing to do with this. Save your praise for miracles, like
drought-breaking rain or regrowth through the ashes.

            “Look at that! Told you, didn’t I? A much cleaner view now, see? We’ll finish her off
with a few more cuts and then we can start out the back.”
You climb down, wiping sweat and tree flesh from your face. Exultant with conquest, you peruse
the subjugation of your land.

            “King of the trees!” you grin.
Except, you can’t reign over the dead and decaying. In ghost tales, maybe, but you’re never
really king of the vanquished. Roots and seeds always remain. Sprouts of sedition everywhere.
And we are not ghosts, certainly not regal, but tired and thirsty mortals, labouring in a hot
suburban garden.
                                                                                    *

            ​You have such plans. Engineered a path to cull and cultivate, burn, and build. I know,
with you, I am fortified. Moats and walls, bricks, and locks. Sheds stored with every efficiency,
every tool. Every future question considered, every fallow sigh ignored. But, standing beside the
fallen trunk, crushed plants, skinned bark, I am hollowed. Later, you dismember the body and I
feed the small branches through the mulcher, twig by stick. Branch by breath. Watching, through
the sad blue tinge of safety goggles, as the machine rumbles and grunts; ingesting limbs, spindly
fingers that quiver in their final snapping outstretched plea.

            “To cultivate, you have to clear first and create a rich foundation,” you scream above the
chainsaw growl.
Yes, I nod again, while the woody scent of tree spirit tickles my nostrils. I shift my feet from
busted organs now splattered across the lawn, spilling out desperate wood borers trying to escape
the light. And, it’s not that I dispute your logic. The garden will flourish to a trained and polished
perfection. And yes, it certainly improves the view, disposes of the redundant, the imperfect, and
makes way for new possibilities.

            “It was rotting from the inside,” you shout.
Yes. And still it stood. Somehow survived. Like all those scurrying beetles, slimy grubs inside
my own heart. Boring, bite by bite, deed by deed into the crumbling chambers of whatever I used
to be. Husked in brittle smiles, compliant gestures, to hold the whistling empty spaces in.
                                                                                            *

            ​I’ve sat so many dusks upon the back cement step, picking at dirt beneath fingernails,
taking a final swig, after toiling in the garden of your plans. Droning of cicadas, scent of green
and brown wreathed about my head as I swat mosquitos from sticky forearms, and watch earth
breathe. It breathes without us. Despite us. Weeds flourish, spider webs lace over branches,
beetles sift through leaf litter, and possums leave pellets of possession. Until we take up prongs
and blades to plunder through another day.

            “We’ll poison the stump tomorrow,” you plot, calling out from behind the shower screen.
And now unease thickens to a tight wad in my throat. Words of acquisition and destruction
tossed about with fervour, mentioned in a soft smile at the restaurant, soothed into my skin as
you caress my fingers at the table, spluttered loudly at a party as you’re back slapping with
friends discussing weekend renovations and plans.

            I scrub and soap the stain from my hands, but these palms are marked with malice.
Cuticles coarse and fingertips callusing to a tougher, less receptive membrane. Sometimes in my
dreams, I sprout vines, thick tendrilled stems from the soft flesh of my calves and upper arms.
They weave around my neck, grow tight and strong, and when I try to weed free, I wake, wailing
with an unnamed dread. But you are always there to hold me, tell me we are builders, not
destroyers. Our little kingdom, for the time I remain as queen, is a fertile, verdant paradise for
our chosen subjects.

            “Off with their heads,” I mutter to the creepers in my dreams. But, even in shadows of
sleep, I lose conviction, purpose to prune. Let there be wild.


​
                                                                                   END

--
Kate Maxwell has been published and awarded in many Australian and International literary magazines. Her first poetry anthology Never Good at Maths was published in 2021, and her second anthology will be forthcoming in 2023. Kate’s interests include film, wine, and sleeping.


​

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  • Home
  • About
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  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
      • Jezzelle Kellam Fall 2022
      • Irina Greciuhina Fall 2022
      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
      • Mark Yale Harris Fall 2022
      • Amy Nelder Fall 2022
      • Bette Ridgeway Fall 2022
      • Ursula Sokolowska Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
      • Lisa Ampleman Fall 2022
      • Will Cordeiro Fall 2022
      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
      • Peter O'Donovan Fall 2022
      • Mackenzie Carignan Fall 2022
      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
      • Barbara Saunier Fall 2022
      • Chad Weeden Fall 2022
      • Nick Rattner Fall 2022
      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
      • Summer J. Hart Fall 2022
      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
      • Liz Robbins Fall 2022
      • john compton Fall 2022
      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
      • Rachel Reynolds Fall 2022
      • Kimberly Ann Priest Fall 2022
      • Annie Przypyszny Fall 2022
      • Konstantin Kulakov Fall 2022
      • Nellie Cox Fall 2022
      • Jennifer Martelli Fall 2022
      • SM Stubbs Fall 2022
      • Joshua Bird Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
      • Otis Fuqua Fall 2022
      • Hannah Harlow Fall 2022
      • Natalia Nebel Fall 2022
      • Kate Maxwell Fall 2022
      • Helena Pantsis Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
      • Courtney Ludwick Fall 2022
      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022
  • Issue #25 Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Art Spring 2023 >
      • David Carter Spring 2023
      • Annabel Jung Spring 2023
      • Ryota Matsumoto Spring 2023
      • Leah Oates Spring 2023
      • Eve Ozer Spring 2023
      • Emily Rankin Spring 2023
      • Esther Yeon Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Poetry Spring 2023 >
      • Emma Bolden Spring 2023
      • Ronda Piszk Broatch Spring 2023
      • M. Cynthia Cheung Spring 2023
      • Flower Conroy Spring 2023
      • Jill Crammond Spring 2023
      • Sandra Crouch Spring 2023
      • Satya Dash Spring 2023
      • Rita Feinstein Spring 2023
      • Dan Fliegel Spring 2023
      • Lisa Higgs ​Spring 2023
      • Dennis Hinrichsen ​Spring 2023
      • Mara Jebsen ​Spring 2023
      • Abriana Jetté ​Spring 2023
      • Letitia Jiju ​Spring 2023
      • E.W.I. Johnson ​Spring 2023
      • Ashley Kunsa ​Spring 2023
      • Susanna Lang ​Spring 2023
      • James Fujinami Moore Spring 2023
      • Matthew Murrey Spring 2023
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2023
      • Heather Qin ​Spring 2023
      • Wesley Sexton ​Spring 2023
      • Ashish Singh ​Spring 2023
      • Sara Sowers-Wills ​Spring 2023
      • Sydney Vogl ​Spring 2023
      • Elinor Ann Walker Spring 2023
      • Andrew Wells Spring 2023
      • Erin Wilson Spring 2023
      • Marina Hope Wilson ​Spring 2023
      • David Wojciechowski Spring 2023
      • Jules Wood Spring 2023
      • Ellen Zhang Spring 2023
      • BJ Zhou Spring 2023
      • Jane Zwart Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Fiction Spring 2023 >
      • Eleonora Balsano Spring 2023
      • Callie S. Blackstone Spring 2023
      • Daniel Deisinger Spring 2023
      • CL Glanzing Spring 2023
      • Janine Kovac Spring 2023
      • Jeremy T. Wilson Spring 2023
      • Richie Zaborowske Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Nonfiction Spring 2023 >
      • Kalie Johnson Spring 2023
      • Amanda Roth Spring 2023